Gaslighting: A British Crime Thriller (Doc Powers & D.I. Carver Investigate Book 3)

by Will Patching

  The remaining pancakes slid from his fingers and dropped to the floor unnoticed, as he took in the new additions. He screwed up his toes inside his trainers, checked to see if he was dreaming. He was not.

  With a burst of energy, Billy ran at the nearest grill, leapt into the air and grabbed the crossbar at the top with both hands, and landed with his feet planted on the brickwork either side of the window and hauled, with every sinew in his body straining, threatening to pop from the effort. The metal wouldn’t budge.

  He was grudgingly impressed with the workmanship, and dropped to the ground, wondering why his mother would have paid for this. Was she worried about theft? That made no sense to him – the main house was unprotected by comparison, and it’s not as if there was anything of serious value inside the annex. The bars would have cost more to install than his TV and computer would to replace.

  Billy went to the door, his key in hand, but there was no longer a single mortice latch to unlock. A new escutcheon had appeared, emblazoned with the Yale logo. He was sure he could have smashed his way through both locks, if it wasn’t for the newly installed outer gate. With eight horizontal steel bars on a sturdy frame, hinged then padlocked closed across the entire doorway. Again, bolted to the wall from the inside.

  The fucking bitch has locked me out of my own bloody rooms!

  Fury at his mother’s gall was building within him, a pressure cooker of seething emotions, bubbling away with no immediate prospect of release. He tried to look through the windows to see whether she had been nosing around his things in there too, but it all looked much as he’d left it.

  Punishment? Is that it?

  Had she locked him out in response to his refusal to talk to her?

  That seemed likely, but the thought didn’t help make him feel any calmer.

  Maybe he could find some tools to force his way back into the place. It was a shame he had been too busy and preoccupied with adjusting his plans to collect his bolt cutters, having left them under that tree with the ruined cable lock on Sunday afternoon. Maybe he could cycle over and retrieve them now.

  He went to the garage and Gramps’ workshop – only to be confronted by newly installed high tensile padlocks dangling from huge steel hasps. Out of unreasoning frustration, he went on the attack. The raw pain from the thuds of his forehead and fists repeatedly denting the metal of the up-and-over door – a heavyweight steel panel his security conscious engineer grandfather had installed – only further incensed him.

  My bloody bike’s in there!

  The thought that he was without wheels built an even greater head of steam, raging inside him, just as another possibility occurred to him.

  The cellar? Noooooo…

  He ran to the side entrance, dreading what he would find, and stopped at the cellar door, grateful for this one small victory over his mother. No padlocks, no steel bars, no new security of any description – the door was still locked, and he had the key in his pocket.

  Billy leaned his forehead against the wood and tried to meditate, to control the savage urge to kill, now welling up inside him. He could go down the steps and finish Smith right this minute. Or even set up his firework display to detonate the house a day early.

  With his mother and grandmother still inside the building…

  It was tempting, but with some heavy breathing, and using the martial arts discipline he had spent thousands of hours developing, he brought himself back under control and went to confront his mother.

  ***

  ‘Sit down, son. I know you’re angry–’

  Suzie would not have been at all surprised to see steam curling off him. Her boy’s face, scarlet, his bright pink ears twitching as he thrust his lower jaw back and forth. His bottom lip, curling over his front teeth, fists bunching and unbunching as he stood with the light behind him from the open back door. Suzie was having trouble trying to stay calm herself, but fear, not rage, was her problem.

  ‘You have no idea how pissed off I am.’ Billy moved into the kitchen, placed his bunched knuckles on the table top and stared down at her. Suzie had seen him in the garden and deliberately positioned herself here, seated opposite the back door, waiting for him, with the table a flimsy barrier between them. It was the best she could do, and she was ready to run if he lashed out, or pulled his knife on her again. ‘What the hell are you thinking, Mother? First, going through my things upstairs, and now locking me out of my annex.’

  ‘It’s not your annex any more.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘And you’re grounded. You’ll be staying home until further notice. No more bike rides, no more canoeing, no more outings anywhere, until I say so.’ Suzie tried to put some steel in her tone, attempting to sound like she was in control. His withering stare made it difficult and she heard the fear in her voice as she spoke. ‘And if you take my car without permission like before, I’ll report you to the police this time, and make sure they lock you up. Now, sit!’

  Suzie sensed him coiling himself, getting ready to attack. His journal was on her lap, under the table, along with some other documents she had selected from his files. With one hand keeping hold of the latter, she lifted the book for him to see, and then threw it at his hands, still planted on the table top.

  The colour of Billy’s face changed almost instantly, from crimson to pale pink, then gradually faded to white. In those moments, he seemed to shrink into himself. Became younger, less threatening, more vulnerable again. He whispered a few hoarse words as he pulled out the chair and sat, wearily.

  ‘You’ve been through my files.’

  ‘I certainly have. There are some terrible things recorded in that bloody book. All written in your handwriting.’ Suzie became more confident. Her son was silent, his head down, staring at the journal, his thumb rubbing at the corner of the front cover. ‘Is it a diary? Have you been doing all those terrible things you’ve written about in there, Billy?’

  ‘No.’ Barely audible.

  ‘What is it, then? Because it sure looks like a diary to me!’

  ‘It’s not… I’m a bit ashamed of it all, Mum. I often have bad thoughts–’

  ‘Bad thoughts! That barely begins to describe the goings on you’ve recorded in that journal.’

  He fired back at that. ‘It’s a story – that’s all.’ Suzie noted the spark, the reappearance of his usual arrogant self before the conciliatory tone returned. ‘I make shit up. I’m planning on writing a novel. Okay...? None of it’s real.’

  A novel?

  It certainly read like some deranged lunatic’s idea of entertainment, if harming defenceless animals and burning things down was on their list of fun things to do. Suzie found that hard to swallow, but would give him the benefit of the doubt. For now.

  ‘And these?’ She flung the handful of papers at him, and they fluttered in his face, bouncing off his shocked countenance before floating to the table and floor. ‘I counted twenty pages with my signature on them. Only, it’s not really my signature, is it, son?’

  ‘What are you on about? ’Course, it is!’

  ‘I know my signature, so don’t even–’

  ‘Bullshit! You think you know what you’re like, even when you’re pissed up? Or high as a fucking kite?’

  ‘Don’t you dare…’ Suzie grabbed the journal and flicked through it until she found a section headed, Gaslighting. She spun the opened book back for him to read. ‘Do you really want to play the innocent, Billy? Your novel makes interesting reading… I wasn’t familiar with the term, but I am intimately familiar with the techniques, having been subjected to endless lies and manipulation by my own flesh and–’

  ‘It’s just a story! And I didn’t forge your–’

  ‘STOP! Just stop it, Billy.’ Suzie wanted to pummel his face, to wipe the sly smile that had been twitching at his mouth since she mentioned the word gaslighting, as if he was still able to lie and confuse anyone around him, even when they’d found out what he had been doing to them. ‘Believe me, son. Tha
t’s not my signature, drunk or sober.’ Suzie grabbed a handful of sheets and waved them at him, furious now, no longer afraid of him. ‘I will happily pay a handwriting expert to confirm it, if you continue to deny you did this.’

  Billy probed at the inside of his mouth with his tongue. Even with his lips clamped tight, Suzie could see it working its way from one side to the other, first over his upper teeth and then the lower ones. Thinking.

  Scheming?

  Considering how he could turn this around? How to manipulate her?

  He would not succeed. Suzie had read his book of tricks, and would not let him control her ever again. She stood, and now looked down her nose at him, certain she had re-established her rightful parental role, her authority over her wayward offspring.

  ‘You’ve even been scratching my face, haven’t you? At night… Deliberately infecting my transplants… How could you, Billy?’ She had to know. ‘Do you believe you’re communicating with your uncle? I saw the shrine. The black candles.’ Her voice, fevered, shrill, almost out of control. ‘It’s all in your head, son. Peter Leech is no hero. No guru! He’s a murderer. He did this to me, for God’s sake!’ Her hand covered the offending cheek, but Billy smiled up at her, openly sneering now. She bellowed, ‘HE WAS FUCKING EVIL… And he is dead. Dead! You stupid, stupid child.’

  ‘You know nothing about him. You know nothing about me.’ He slowly got to his feet and said, ‘Believe what you like, you dopey cunt.’ Suzie’s shocked gasp at the uncouth insult, tossed at his own mother in such a casual fashion, merely broadened his grin. ‘I’m going to my room. Now that I’m grounded… At least, until you hit the bottle again.’ He snorted and went to leave.

  Suzie lost it.

  She flew at him, slapping his head, scratching at his eyes, her mind no longer in control of her limbs, her feet kicking at his shins.

  All to no effect.

  He shrugged off her feeble blows, grasped her forearms with fingers of steel, probing for her nerves, sending pain jetting through her neck and shoulders, paralysing her. He then pulled her up, until she was on tiptoe, his hands just above his own head, their eyes level.

  His, malignant and green-blue, telegraphing his rage at her.

  She suddenly realised how powerless she was – how powerful he was – and all the fight flushed away as rapidly as it had arrived.

  ‘Pathetic. Cow.’

  He seemed to do no more than open his hands but she was flung backwards and felt her lower back slam into the corner of the table, the pain knocking the breath from her lungs, igniting sparklers in her brain, dazzling her.

  She blinked through her agony, and tried to stand as she looked up at his cruel face. The same harsh, callous, uncaring face, worn by his father on the worst night of Suzie’s life.

  She fingered her cheek and muttered, her voice a whimper. ‘It wasn’t my fault. It was you, all along.’

  ‘Haha! You believe that if you want. You should be blaming that greedy bastard, Maddox… I despise you for squandering our money on endless, pointless operations at his overpriced clinic. But you won’t be doing that any more.’

  Suzie staggered upright, kidneys bruised and aching, and tried to follow him to the stairs, not understanding his comment. ‘Don’t you believe it, Billy. I will get myself back to normal. With his help!’

  He turned on her, his face a vile mask of demonic intent, as if some creature from hell had taken over his mind and body. His hand shot out and gripped her lower jaw. She thought he was going to break it, tear it off her face, his fingers were that strong. He pulled her to him and she felt hot breath on her ear as she wriggled, trying to free herself by burying her tatty nails in his arm.

  ‘The clinic’s gone, Mummy dearest… Someone had the good sense to burn the place to the ground.’

  ‘No! Stop lying–’

  ‘I’m not… You should try watching the news occasionally. You might learn something about the real world.’

  He shoved her away, this time without so much force, and left her standing, shivering in the hall, suddenly ashamed that she had wet herself with fear without even realising it.

  Billy was gone, as soundlessly as ever.

  What did he mean about the Professor’s clinic?

  And was her son the someone who had burned the property to the ground?

  Suzie turned on the TV, found a news channel and watched, not sure what to believe any more.

  Billy Liar…

  When the newscaster finally described the details of this morning’s horrific incident in Harley Street, she clapped both hands over her mouth, her knees buckling. Then, yet more shocking news filled her tormented ears – Professor Maddox had been inside his apartment at the time. Suzie bowed her head, tears falling to the carpet as she whispered a prayer for him, the poor soul who had been so cruelly murdered…

  Immolated.

  By her own flesh and blood.

  ***

  Chief Superintendent Sadie ‘Soundbite’ Dawson’s voice echoed through the speakers in Jack’s car as she berated her most insubordinate senior officer from the comfort of her plush office at Scotland Yard.

  ‘You’ve been suspended, Carver. What is it about that term you find so difficult to understand?’

  Jack grimaced at Doc as he parked his Jag at the service station on the M4 westbound, just short of Windsor, all the while regretting his decision to borrow his friend’s spare phone. It hadn’t taken Soundbite long to find out they had been to London, although Jack had been hopeful she might not hear about their expedition at all.

  Fat chance.

  The phrase resonated in his memory, taking him back to Sunday afternoon and Felix-the-fat-chancer. A guilty conscience was a rare commodity in Jack’s list of character traits, but he felt it then, though the moment passed as he tried appealing to his boss’s better nature.

  ‘I wasn’t working, Ma’am. Dickie Maddox is… was a mate, and I just–’

  ‘A mate! And that’s exactly why you and your pal Powers should be nowhere near this investigation. Or the one into the explosion that murdered your son-in-law.’

  ‘Felix was not my–’

  ‘Don’t argue with me…’

  The silence that followed was ominous, and Jack should have stayed quiet and let her continue. He didn’t.

  ‘I’m just trying to help–’

  ‘The detectives handling both cases do not need your assistance. We already have a suspect, and plenty of incriminating video from this morning. As for the boat, well – just leave the Reading detectives to it. They don’t need help from a Neanderthal thug like you. You can’t even control your emotions, thumping a colleague like that.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Enough! You have an upcoming misconduct review to think about, and I might just convince my colleagues in Reading to press charges against you for assault on a fellow officer if you continue to disobey my direct commands. So, go and finish your holiday, Carver. That’s an order. Don’t make yet more trouble for yourself by ignoring it.’

  ‘Come on, Sadie–’

  ‘It’s Chief Superintendent Dawson to you, Carver. And if I hear any more about you poking your nose in where it’s not wanted, I will have you arrested for interfering with an ongoing police investigation. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Absolutely, Boss.’

  ‘And I hope Powers is still with you, and earwigging in on this conversation.’ Jack and Doc exchanged glances at that, with Jack wondering if the bloody witch had eyes everywhere. ‘Because I will have him arrested too, if you two carry on with your unofficial investigations. Christ Almighty – you’re both way too close to these events to be involved in any way, shape or form. Now piss off on vacation, Jack, and don’t let me hear another whisper that you’ve been disobeying my orders again. Or I promise you, your career will be over.’

  Click.

  ‘Wow.’ Doc stared out of the windscreen, then turned to Jack and asked, ‘So, what do we do now?’

  �
�We get some bleedin brekkers – that’s why we stopped here. They do a great fry up and there’s a decent Costa Coffee outlet too.’ Jack knew that was not what Doc meant, was aware that he was in denial and that Soundbite meant exactly what she said. He shoved open his door and swivelled his legs out, unfolded himself from the car and yawned. ‘That’s better. Come on. I’m starving.’

  Doc traipsed after him and they ordered their food and drinks without any further conversation, but Doc had plenty to say when they sat down with their loaded trays.

  ‘She’s serious. You could lose your job if you carry on with this, Jack. It’s not worth it. Let me see the Leeches. Alone. I can get away with it. Think about it. Billy came to me for help in the first place, and Mrs Leech has just invited me to visit them this afternoon, to talk to them both…’ Doc ignored his food and coffee, his entire focus on Jack. ‘You, on the other hand…’ He let the words tail off.

  Jack tucked into his plate of eggs and bacon, then took a gulp of scalding coffee before replying. ‘Are you gonna eat? We haven’t got all day. And stop staring at me like that. I’m coming with you. End of.’

  Doc took a few more seconds to eyeball him, then shrugged and started eating. Through a mouthful of omelette, he asked about something that had not entered Jack’s mind since Doc first mentioned it. ‘Did you get anywhere with the video records from the royal protection squad? Regarding Billy, and any nocturnal activities in the immediate area?’

  ‘It slipped my mind, to be honest. They’re very tight-lipped about any goings on around the royal premises they’re tasked to watch. They can’t risk leaks to the newspapers. Or tip-offs to the paparazzi. Why?’

  ‘Dickie was very well connected…’

  ‘Yeah, I know, may he rest in peace.’ The London detective at Harley Street had called to confirm the body was that of Professor Maddox immediately before Soundbite had given Jack an earful. ‘Old Etonian and friend to the former Prime Minister. Regularly invited to lunch at the Houses of Parliament by his Establishment buddies… You think dropping his name with the Royal Protection Detail would help?’